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BERLIN – Europe should review its strategy on the Syrian conflict and take action instead of looking helplessly at the mounting death toll, Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on Sunday.

“The fight against the Syrian dictator Assad and the so-called ISIS has not been carried out with the necessary determination,” de Maiziere told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.

“We should not simply look on as murder takes place,” he said.

“Europe needs a strategy that is not restricted from the outset to diplomacy,” Germany’s Interior Minister said.

This comes amid increasing influx of Syrian refugees into Europe.

Some 450,000 refugees have arrived in Germany this year, and the pace picked up in the past week. The country is expecting at least 800,000 this year.

According to U.N. reports, more than 240,000 people have been killed so far in Syria since the outbreak of the popular uprising against Assad regime in March 2011, that turned later on into a deadly civil war.